How screwed up are the manuscripts of the New Testament? What aren’t Christian preachers and apologists telling the public? How can you know when they are trying to pull the wool over your eyes about what’s in the Bible…or if they even know they are reporting the facts correctly?
How can you tell which Bible translation is the most honest for any given passage?
How have books been transmitted to us from the ancient world two thousand years ago? Is their text reliable enough to trust? Why? Or why not?
Do the Gospels really disagree on when Jesus was born? Do modern Bibles really contain known forgeries? Has the Gospel of Mark been doctored after the fact?
Answers to those questions, and more, will be covered in this course.
But what questions do you have about the New Testament? Like about its formation and transmission, its survival and accuracy, how it’s translated, what Christians claim about what it says. Or any question in the subject of New Testament studies, or the study of Greco-Roman texts generally.
This is your chance to ask an expert and get as full a response as you want, with as much follow up as you want, within the month of February. So join this class and take advantage of it!
Only one course text is required (and you can get it on kindle): my anthology Hitler Homer Bible Christ.
See you there!
What would we be required to believe in order to accept that the gospels were written by disciples of Jesus? (assuming the events portrayed actually happened)
Well, first, they would have to say they were (they don’t; and two explicitly deny it).
But after that: that claim would have to be believable (e.g. even fundamentalist Christians don’t believe Peter wrote the Gospel of Peter). There are a number of clues that can raise or lower that believability for any document. The best scenario is neutral external corroboration as to who wrote what (e.g. a Jewish or pagan contemporary who acknowledges a particular text came from a particular person because they have direct knowledge). But there are weaker evidences that can produce weaker but still above average probabilities.
He careful out there in Canada, Richard. The radical feminists there in Toronto really like to threaten and disrupt events by Pick Up Artists like yourself. They seem to have an irrational hatred of men like us, successful males who know how to cut through all of the bullshit and use game to get laid. Just look at how they recently attacked events by another successful Pick Up Artist, RooshV. If I were you I would avoid Toronto like the plague. The scene there, sucks anyway, full of silly, stupid people who aspire to dumb things like monogamy and marriage. All I am saying is, if you do go to that lame city, be careful.
Aw. I like the Freudian “He careful” opening in your silly troll-iping.
I’m unconcerned.
I’m sure feminists in Toronto will be perfectly nice to me. Canadian feminists in fact always have been. We’ve even more than once downed a whisky together. Indeed I actually roll my eyes at the pathetic PUAs as much as they do. Such sad, pathetic, sexist, fact-challenged douchebros.
Plus, the very day I return, I’m attending an orgy.
So I’m covered.
P.S. You must be drunk. This isn’t the Toronto post. That’s here.
Hi, Richard,
I am a longtime fan of your work from your articles at infidels.org to your recent masterpiece OHJ. I find both your historical and philosophical writings to be groundbreaking, and I find myself rereading your works again and again, I really want to take your course and learn some of your methodology of analyzing the Bible.
Unfortunately, I have some serious reservations as well. Sometimes it appears that you lack professionalism and do not take your work seriously. A recent comment on your blog is troubling: http://www.richardcarrier.info/archives/8438#comment-1057789
In that comment, you claim that you post on your blog while receiving blowjobs from your many girlfriends. This really makes it seem that you really don’t give a shit about your professional work. You don’t b when have live classes in this course. How can I be comfortable in plunking down my hard earned money for this course if I think you are concentrating on getting blowjobs instead of writing your course materials?
I know you may think I am a pride, but i am most certainly not. I am poly myself, and I enjoy your honesty about your personal life as well as your discussions of ethical sexuality. But sometimes you veer into territory on your blog that makes you look extremely unprofessional, and that makes it hard to take you seriously. All of the constant references to things you do with your girlfriends make you come off like an insecure high school kid ltelling bullshit stories in the locker room to impress his friends.
I really want to take your course. Please tell me something to reassure me that if I spend my money that you will be professional and take it seriously.
People have sex.
That’s not unprofessional.
Hiding sex, like a 19th century Elizabethan prude, is not professionalism.
I’m a sexual freedom activist. So a lot of what I do is talk about normalizing and humanizing our attitudes about and understanding of sex, and why having fewer prudes like you in society will make the world a better place.
This class of course won’t touch on any such discussions (unless a student somehow brings it up in some way that actually connects to the course goals, which I very much doubt).
But even so, if you are so terrified and disgusted by sex that you would rather avoid anyone who ever has sex and dares talk about it against prudish taboos, then I certainly don’t want you as a student!
Go to seminary.